


For Your Entertainment

by hhertzof



Category: Betsy-Tacy - Lovelace, Yuletide RPF
Genre: Chromatic Character, Crossover, Dark Agenda Challenge, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Betsy and her family, Christmas 2009. The more things change...</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Your Entertainment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whetherwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whetherwoman/gifts).



As Betzi pulled her favorite top over her head - the one she'd planned to save for tomorrow - she supposed it wasn't terribly cool for a sixteen-year-old girl to _like_ to hang out with her great-grandmother, but it wasn't as though Granny Betsy was stuck in the past. And even though Sunday Night Lunch might be sort of lame, it was fun in a way too. Even if it wasn't Sunday, and they weren't having Lunch. At least by her standards. She knew it was something Granny had done back in the day with her Dad, and the name had stuck. They still had onion sandwiches, which Betzi adored, though over the years that had been supplemented with everything from sushi (Great Uncle Hikaru, when he'd married Great Aunt Mattie after the war - Betzi still didn't know how he'd convinced Minnesotans in the 1940s that octopus was good to eat) to buttermilk biscuits (the Snow family recipe, which Grandpa Ben's mom had taught Grandma Bettina to make after Betzi's mom was born, as an apology for taking so long to warm to her daughter-in-law), and most recently Marina's gefilte fish and potato latkes (also homemade). Somehow the resultant clash of cultures worked, and it never felt the same without them.

They were spread out enough that it was only when they got together that they did this now, which was why it had turned into a Christmas Eve tradition. They'd eat, and they'd catch each other up on the news, and Granny would insist on holding whatever new babies were around and tell stories of the Deep Valley of her youth. Betzi had never met her great-grandpa - he'd died before she was born - and Granny was over a hundred now. Most of her friends had passed away, but her mind was still sharp. She'd seen so many changes in her life and had taken them all in stride.

One of her favorite family stories told of how Great Aunt Mattie and Grandma Bettina had met up at Heinz's when they came back to Deep Valley, both worried about what their parents would say when they introduced their fiancés, Great Aunt Mattie because Great Uncle Hikaru was Japanese and the United States had just got out of a war with Japan, and Grandma Bettina because Grampa Ben was Black, and that wasn't done in those days either. But they'd gone home, holding hands tightly for moral support. But their fears had been unfounded - Granny Betsy and Grandpa Joe had been thrilled with their new sons-in-law, and while their lives hadn't been easy, they had at least had the support of their family.

Betzi had only come up to change after a marathon cookie-making session with her younger cousins. Sam, Tiko, Mel, and Emily had gotten into a food fight, and she'd ended up covered head to toe in flour, so she'd decided a shower was in order. Thankfully, Tris and Trudy had quickly organized their younger siblings into a clean up squad, and she'd been free to run upstairs and get out of her messy clothes. Thinking about what she might be missing while she was upstairs made her speed up. She didn't want to miss a thing. Checking her cornrows in the mirror (Granny'd done them yesterday while her mom was out shopping), she applied a little lipstick and then grabbed her earrings and headed downstairs, putting them in as she went.

Sunday Night Lunch didn't disappoint. Once her plate was filled - one big onion sandwich, a biscuit smothered in chicken gravy, and other yummy things - Betzi grabbed a stool and perched, listening to Granny Betsy wondering loudly when her sister Jules and her girlfriend Marina were going to get married. Typically, Granny knew all the places they could do this legally and even offered to investigate venues and Rabbis. This was Marina's second Willard family Christmas, so it wasn't surprising that Granny already considered her part of the family.

Persuading Granny they weren't ready to take that step took Marina and Jules most of Lunch, so it wasn't surprising that Jules was the one who asked if everyone was ready for some music. Everyone piled into the large living room, and Jules sat down at the piano, and started to play. Betzi, sitting on the old sofa between her cousins Lorelei and Genna, with their sister Victoria sitting on the floor leaning against her legs, and Kristin perched on the arm of the sofa where she threatening to fall into Lorelei's lap at any moment, had to admit it was a bit cheesy, but at least they didn't just stick to the old standards of Christmas carols and songs from Granny's day (though there were a few of those and everyone sang along). Granny always said that when they'd started this tradition, it had been modern music and that it should stay that way. This year they sang everything from "Morning Cy" to the latest Broadway hits. But Betzi wasn't prepared for Jules to launch into Adam Lambert's "For Your Entertainment". She should have been. Jules had always liked shocking people with the songs she chose ("The Masochism Tango" had been her favorite song in high school), but somehow Betzi had been lulled into a false sense of security this year. Isabel, of course was the first to start singing. Isabel adored American Idol.

Still she was even more shocked when her Granny Betsy started singing along with gusto.

_Oh, do you know what you got into?  
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?  
'Cause it's about to get rough for you  
I'm here for your entertainment_

It should have been embarrassing. Most of her friends would have pretended not to know these people, but by the end of the first chorus, Betzi was singing along, loud and strong and proud. Granny always told her that she'd inherited that singing ability from Granny's sister, Julia, who'd been an opera singer, the one who had played this very same piano when Betsy was young. It made her feel connected to the past and to her family and even to the future.

_Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet  
You thought an angel swept ya off your feet  
Well I'm about to turn up the heat  
I'm here for your entertainment_


End file.
